U.S. drone takes out al-Qaida's second-in-command

 A U.S. drone strike has killed al-Qaida's second-in-command, an American official said Tuesday, a significant blow to the terror network that has lost a string of top leaders since the death of Osama bin Laden last year.

Abu Yahya al-Libi was considered a media-savvy, charismatic leader who escaped from an American prison in Afghanistan and helped preside over the transformation of al-Qaida into a terror movement aimed at winning converts around the world.



LINK:  Drone strike kills al-Qaida leader

CBO: Federal debt to reach 200% of GDP within 20 years

The federal government is staring at a disastrous fiscal picture with debt approaching 200 percent of GDP within two decades if Congress doesn’t change course on spending and taxes, according to the latest analysis by the Congressional Budget Office released Tuesday.

The CBO said it’s the worst picture since a brief period during World War II when spending ballooned to fund the military campaign.

“In the past few years, the federal government has been recording the largest budget deficits since 1945, both in dollar terms and as a share of the economy. Consequently, the amount of federal debt held by the public has surged,” the CBO report said in a long-term budget outlook that paints a shockingly dark picture of government finances.

LINK:  Federal debt

Venus will cross between the Earth and Sun this afternoon

The rare Transit of Venus is coming Tuesday afternoon in the United States, and it's a once-in-a-lifetime viewing chance for West Coast viewers. The next time this astronomical phenomena will happen is 2117.

LINK: Venus transits the Sun

The weak 'recovery' explained

Robert Barro writing in the WSJ:

... in the current "recovery," beginning in the second quarter of 2009, growth has averaged only 2.4% per year, and just 1.8% for the first quarter of 2012. This low growth means that the U.S. economy has actually been falling further and further behind the normal trend. Therefore, it is not a recovery at all.

The Obama administration likes to blame the country's weak economic performance on the Bush administration, Europe's debt crisis, Japan's tsunami and so on. President Obama's advisers are now saying they learned only gradually that the economy was in even worse shape than they had imagined in 2009. But even if this is so, it gets the signals backwards: A bigger recession predicts a stronger recovery (as has to be true for the economy to return to its trend line).

To achieve a real recovery, government policy should focus on individual incentives to work, produce and invest. Central here are tax rates and regulations, including especially clarity about future policies. In a successful policy package, the government would get its fiscal house in order and make meaningful long-term reforms to entitlement programs and the tax structure.


The Obama administration seems to think that individual incentives and serious fiscal reforms are of no great importance and policy should emphasize Keynesian-style demand stimulus (public works, prolonged benefits) along with bits of industrial policy (loans and grants to "green" energy companies). This approach has failed for three years.

LINK:  Weak recovery explained